When I interviewed Darnell Phillips in the spring of twenty nineteen, it was actually a heard interview for me to do this gentle giant of a man who had never been in trouble. I was studying to be a minister, was just starting his life as a teenage young man. Was wrong for the convicted since to one hundred and seven years in prison, he was released conditional release even after he proved his innocence with DNA, still restricted in his movements, and yet he has not let any of this hold
him back. Just this year he started his dream business, a mobile auto detailing business called Redemption Auto Detailing LLC. Redemption Auto Detailing. Yet he's a minister. It's incredible. When I heard that name, I almost fell on the floor. Darnell is a pro at taking people's beat up looking cars and making them look like brand new. Therefore Redemption Auto Detailing, and he has a sort of a joy about the way he goes about life, but also just
the way that he approaches his job. And as a result, the business is growing and flourishing. It's in Virginia. Look him up. His Instagram is at darn phill nineteen that's dar and Phil the number nineteen. Follow Darnell and you will be inspired because he is hitting it out of the park. He got engaged to a wonderful woman. What can you say about a guy who served almost three decades in prison of one hundred and something year sentence
for a crime everybody knew he didn't commit. That victim came forward, everybody came forward, and yet spent not a minute of time feeling sorry for himself and is living his best life. Darnell, if you're listening, you have all my respect and for all you wrongful conviction listeners, I'm super excited for you to hear this episode.
This Paul is from a correction facility.
And it's subject to monitoring and recording.
Fact eleven embarism, Okay, and it hasn't been easy.
One hundred years, that's man. I'm a kid. I didn't do anything, you know, and uh you know that was ah, that was real painful, man. No, because my life was discarded as if you know, like I was a piece of trash or something, you know. One hundred years and I had dreams and I wanted to do things. I wasn't committing crimes, you know, I was a very good young man.
That is what happened in so many cases. The cops have a hunch because are so smart at the scene, they have a hunch, and once they act on that hunch, they sort of developed tunnel vision and they take off marching in the wrong direction. And that happens in so many of these wrongful convictions.
They open it to sell door and I walk down stif and I actually walked down stairs to be outside. It felt very strange to be, like I said, to be walking without no shackles on my feet. I thought it was a dream. But then again, it wasn't a dream.
This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm that's me. I'm your host, and today we have Darnelle Phillips, wrongfully in prison for twenty eight years and only released back on September twenty fifth. Welcome, Glad you're here.
Thank you.
I always say I'm sorry you're here, but I'm happy you're here. And with him, Lisa SPE's is here and she runs Virginians for Judicial Reform. And Lisa and I have been working closely together for a while now on some Virginia cases. So I'm glad you're here as well.
Thanks for having me.
So, Darnell, your case is troubling in so many ways. Yes, the fact that you were ever prosecuted for this case doesn't make any sense.
And let's go back.
I mean, this is a really brutal case. It's a violent rape of a ten year old girl, white girl, and Darnell is larger than life blackmail, and we know the cross racial identifications are incredibly unreliable. But let's not even go there yet. How did this ever come to pass in the first place? You didn't match the description. There's so much misconduct and so many mistakes both I think deliberate and accidental in your case. But let's go back to where did this happen? How did this happen?
How did you first get wrapped up in it at all?
In Virginia Beach in August nineteen ninety, I was in the process of trying to to do something like you do with music. You know, I was a young guy. You know, you want to make money, you want to try to, you know, go after your dreams. It just so happened to meet a young man from New York at the gym where he used to box at and so I saw that he was interested in music. When I said, well, you know what, I have another friend who goes to Norfolk State, the DJ. We can get together,
maybe we can get this demo. We wanted to try to do it for this rap group called Public Enemy, and you know, in the early nineties. And so one of the days that I was over Michael's house, it was raining outside. When the rain began to settle down, we went back outside. We were laughing, just doing things, smoking a cigar, just talking futuristic things. You know. We had man, I would love to, you know, be a music producer, and you know he's talking about y'all I
love to rap. And so when we got I'm not even ten steps outside of his house, there was a guy walking by and he asked could I have a light? Gave him a light and everything. So we went walked around the corner. That just so happened. Police they rolled up. And when they rolled up, we were like, well, what's going on, officer? He said, well, young girl had just been raped. We're like, whoa, We said, somebody just walked by us. We told him. They went that way back
towards a place called corporate apartments. It was a military housing unit, and so he said, well, will you be around because in case we need to talk to you. He said, what, sure, but we didn't say anything. About fifteen minutes later, the auser came back through. He spoke with us. I was eighteen, Michael was sixteen. Spoke with Michael about, you know, where had he been and but
Michael really didn't fit the description. So I was like, well, he's been with me, so there's no way in the world he could have been doing a type of crime. I had an all brown and black. They were looking for a man that had great shorts on white and green with the number forty two on the jersey. So you know, obviously I didn't fit the description. I wasn't the person's hired or anything. But nevertheless, they said, well can you try this hat on? But I was like, well,
I didn't wants to try a hat on or whatever. Right, I had a hat I guess similar to the person who did the crime. It's like a Chicago Bulls hat. So Michael put the hat on. They snapped a picture. Then they asked me willingly. I said, yeah, sure, no problem. I put the hat on him. They snapped the picture the officer. He drove me home that night. That Friday, I was arrested. When I was arrested, they didn't tell me what I was arrested for. And it took some hours.
Got down to the police station and spoke to a few detectives, you know, for like four hours probably. Then there was another detective came in, you know, unlike the other ones. And I grew up around police officers, you know, they were kind to us. Then they come through the neighborhood. We would speak with him. And when I spoke to the detective, he automatically started just belittling me. He moved your you know, you did the crime. I'm like, well,
what are you trying to damage my life? Man? You know, like you're trying to hurt me. What are you doing? And so he just kept getting in my face and arguing at me and trying to get me to confess. He was trying to leave me on questions. I was smart enough, even though I was eighteen years old, I was smart enough to know that he was trying to pull me into a trap. I said, look, man, I said, I don't know what your situation is, but look, you got the wrong, man. I said, I have alibis and everything.
Why while you doing this? He just said, well, look you told me. I said, I didn't tell you anything. I said, well, I'm not gonna sign anything. I said, you know, I didn't know. I said, I'm not signing anything. He's like, well, he said, that's make any difference. He said, who you think they're gonna believe me over you? He said, I'll take that young girl. He said, when I put in pig tails, and they'll look at you like an animal.
I said, why are you doing so me? I put my head down because I said, I just want to go home, maybe my family, you know. And he told me, he said, well You're never going home. And so that right there he broke my heart. But nevertheless I still didn't't giving him what he wanted. He wanted me to just outright tell him I did it. I said, man, I just can't do that. Man. And after that was in jail that thirty Saturday morning. That Monday, I went to court. Next you know, I'm hearing I confessed and
I had brutally raped this girl. And so I'm I'm caught up like what because I had an alibi witness I had a preacher's wife. She was in the house, her son, guy named Michael Northfleet, and a host of other guys who saw me that day that knew they I all had on all brown and black. I hadn't been out, and so I was a bit fuddled because the only move I made that they was to get to his house stay in his house. And when we saw the police later on, that was it.
Well, Lisa, there were all these signs. I mean, they weren't just ignored. They were I mean, his rights were trampled on. We know that because I mean when you get an officer actually lying about a confession, we know about false confessions. This wasn't even that, this was a non confession that they then just made up a story. He told you he was going to do it, and he did do it right, Which is interesting too because he actually told you upfront, here's what I'm going to
do to you. What would anybody feel in that situation other than why are you doing this to me? I'm not that guy. Like it's such a horrifying scenario, and especially like he said, as you did, as I did, I'm sure as Lisa did. We all grow up respecting authority figures expecting the uniform. We know that they're there to serve and protect and that they're the people you call if you're in trouble. Now all of a sudden, they are the people are trying to put you in trouble.
So Lisa helped me out here because this is a bad one.
Well, I don't know how much I can help you out with it. I mean, it reminds me of so many other cases that we've heard about, the Central Park five and Jeff Daskovic and Andy Kreebeck, And I think the difference is that Darnell had the state of mind at the time that he just was not going to give a false confession, and clearly that officer knew that and he didn't care, and he was going to say
that he did it anyway. And that's, you know, the story that they continue to say that Darnell confessed, and that's what they've stuck to for twenty eight years. So in the recent court decision, it still continues to state that, you know, Darnell confessed, which we just know is patently false.
Yeah, we're going to get to that later because there's a whole long tail on this story, right you know, he's still being persecuted by the state, even after having been proven innocent, and even after the victim coming forward repeatedly and really begging the authorities to reverse this and realizing that she had made a mistake. And we can get into that too, and how she was really coerced
into implicating you. Obviously, when someone endures a traumatic experience, which hers can't be more traumatic than what this poor girl went through, they're going to be prone to misidentifying someone or making mistakes, even if everybody does their job the way they're supposed to. That's not what happened here.
But what they're probably not going to make a mistake on is identifying the color of the clothes, right, facial characteristics, height, Right, she's not sitting there with you know, a grass to be able to show how tall you are, how much you weigh. They could be off by twenty thirty fifty pounds even who knows. But they're not going to make a mistake on the color of the clothes, not that
big of a mistake. It's not like it was gray or you know, light black, or you know what I mean, Like you were wearing completely different clothes, brown.
And black Paisley black pants, brown and black Paisley shirt. Chicago Bulls had person they were looking at had a white and green jersey with the numbers forty two. She described that person is being a little older, out of shape. At the time, I used to run every morning, so I was like one hundred and seventy pounds. I should train with my cousin, you know, go boxing and everything. So you know, I was slim and trim, you know. And the sad part about it was that that brown
and black garment. They paraded it around in court as if that was the white and green shirt, as if they implicated me with guilt. And I'm like, are they seeing this? The jury, I'm like, are you seeing this? This is a brown and black shirt, then someone with white and green.
This is not like that thing that went around on the internet a while ago where it was a dress gold or is it blue? Right, and there was this whole This is not that. This is cut and dry. Anybody with eyes can tell the difference between those colors.
It's not tricky. But speaking of tricky, I mean, the only word I can think of for it is disgusting on a number of levels, which is what they did to influence this young girl to implicate you, right, they were willing to go to extreme lengths to let's just call it, get this case off their desk, Lisa, Can you talk about some of the things that they did to influence this young girl who was so impressionable at this point and so damaged and so upset.
So the victim in this case was a ten year old female who had been brutally sexually assaulted. She could not identify anyone when they came to speak with her, and they influenced her by telling her that Darnell had in fact confessed, but that they couldn't use the confession against him. They told her that her blood was found
on Darnell's underwear. They told her that Darnell had committed similar crimes and been in trouble in the past, all of which were absolutely false, and they told her this to influence her to give an identification of Darnell to maintain the charge and also to get a conviction in a trial. Yeah, I mean disgusting. I don't even think begins to cover doing that to someone, because not only are you doing this to Darnell, who they knew was innocent,
it's not a mistake. It's not an innocent mistake. In this case, they knew he was innocent. And it's not just leaving a predator on the street who's most likely going to commit another crime like this, but you're also committing a fraud on a ten year old victim who was sexually assaulted and her family who all had to go through that, and then twenty eight years later she
finds out that it's all been a lie. And think about what kind of wrapping your mind around that would do to you after going through that kind of an experience as a child, and now having a wrap your mind around that you know you were part of this fraud as well, I mean unknowingly didn't do anything wrong on her own. She was told this, and of course we all believe the police. When you're ten and you go through something like that, all of us would believe that.
And when it comes to the girl, I was getting the chills while you were talking, because I was thinking, who's to say that this guy who's still out on the streets wasn't going to go back and rape her again?
Right?
She was in danger, and look, maybe they couldn't have caught him anyway. Maybe he had disappeared into thin air or gone to Canada or who knows right, but if he was around, there was a way to find him. I mean, this is Virginia Beach too, This is not a tiny little town. They have resources, right, They have trained professionals that could have gone and done the hard work to go find this guy.
Well, the tourism industry in Virginia Beach is very strong, as well as the military community, and I think for both of those things, you know, you would want to find the actual perpetrator rather than just lock somebody up and, like you said, get the file off their.
Desk and give the public the false impression that everything's safe now and you can go out and do your thing, when in fact they should have been telling people to keep a careful eye on their kids while we're continuing this investigation. Don't let them go anywhere by themselves. I'm sure kids were just right back to riding their bikes and doing whatever they did in Virginia Beach back then, twenty eight years ago. Tarnell, let's talk about the trial.
There you are with alibi witnesses, credible alibi witnesses. As you said, the preacher's daughter, and this and that, and like your friends, and you had an almost air tight case. How long were you in jail awaiting trial.
I stayed in jail for like five months and I made bond. Here's how far the injustice goes, Jason. When I was in jail, my lawyer told me, I said, Darnelle, look, you don't have a record, and there are certain things in this case that he said, don't line up, he said, but they have to give you a record. I said, give me a record like what he said, They're going to open a book up on you. They can give you a robbery charge. I said, a robbery charge. So
they gave me. It was two cases. But because this rate charge was so heavy, they gave me a robbery charge when I had witnesses. I was at work. I couldn't have been there, right, I didn't drive at the time, Jason.
So so they invented a prior robbery just.
So they could just to give me a criminal record.
So they had an open robbery case and they just decided.
He told me they were gonna dump it, and they gave a description of the man at the time. You know, when I saw the guy on the photos I saw, it was like he was like a larger, light skinned guy, had bald head at the time, and my ID picture I had full headed hair, you know this summertime. I was you know, dark brown.
So they had like a surveillance photo of the guy or somewhere.
But the guy had an ear ring in his ear. Now here's the thing about it. I had an ear ring in my ear when I was fourteen. It became infected because my brother friend did it. But by the time trial came along four years later, the victim had said the guy had an earring, but a plastic surgeon came and told him that it's no way in the world his ear could have been opened at that time. He says, this is a fully heeled ear. He said, it's no way in the world possible. And so I
didn't look like the guy. I had alibi witnesses, so they give me another false charge. But the other case, I was facing three life sentences in thirty years, So really I wasn't thinking about that too much, right, and so they were just pretty much dumping everything on me. So when I got out on bond Man, I was a very fearful person because my outlook on the police office. They weren't the same anymore.
It's a good thing they caught the guy that killed Ay Blinket. They might have tried to pin that on you too, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, you know, we got an open case here. They was this guy. We were in the theater back in eighteen sixty whatever, and they'd be like, no, yeah, this guy, this is the guy right here. You know what I mean. We can laugh about it now, Well you're laughing about it, but like it's actually it's preposterous. So back to the trial.
So I got out on bond. No remember the fifth nineteen ninety. I went to trial in June nineteen ninety. I saw my first day, my lawyer told me to go to the back of the courtroom. I was like, well, why do you tell me to go to the back of the courtroom. For they saw the prosecutor walking the victim down the aisle and they stopped on my aisle. And she didn't point me out, but what she did she stopped by my eye and I'm like, what in the world is going on? But later on we found
out that they coached her. She said that they coached her, that Look, he's going to be sitting at that table. This is what he got on. Don't change your story. So she was coached, not only by police officer, was coached by prosecutors. Came time for trial to you know, the victim pointed me out from that. I found that out maybe like a year ago, you know what I mean. So keep mind twenty seven years past. I'm finding this out.
I'm like, that's what's going on. Because I was often puzzled, why didn't they just stop her where the row I was at? And so I said, that's why the prosecutors did that.
Were there any rumors around because you were out for this period of time before the trial, were there rumors around the neighborhood about somebody else that might have done it?
Yeah, the name was mentioned by one of the victim's family friends. Is what ass I believe the victim's father about some man named Omar because one of the victim's friend she said that when she was walking on the path and saw the girl with the bike, she said she saw also so a guy with a black hat, very popular Michael, like a bulls hat at the time. You know, he was toiling in his hands and she said he had on similar type clothing, you know, white,
white and green and stuff. She said, well, he was toiling the hat and then when she looked, he just took off running and she said, oh, they looked just like Omar. In court when I heard that, I said, okay, so evidently maybe you know, they'll find this Omar guy saw be in the clear. But they never really looked for.
Omar, you know, so they weren't really interested in No more.
They weren't interested Omar. They were interested in Darnell.
But at that point also it's important to remember that not only was their misconduct by the police and Darnell's original questioning, but there was continued misconduct by pointing Darnell out to the victim in the courtroom and coaching her and telling her these false things about Darnell from the first place, so really from the Star throughout the trial with the prosecutors, there was continued sheenanigans to nail it on him. And I don't really think they were interested in anybody else.
Clearly they weren't interesting.
But they clearly knew that he didn't do it, too, because if he did it, you don't have to go about it.
This way that's true.
But I mean we do have obviously cases of tunnel vision, where you have prosecutors and police who believe that they have the right guy and then they just sort of, you know, they get into this sort of vortex where they shape and shift the narrative in order to fit what they believed to be true. And that's a thing that happens. This doesn't seem like that was the case at all. They knew you didn't confess, they knew you weren't wearing the right clothes, they knew you had an alibi,
they knew you had never been in trouble. There was not one little thing that would have indicated to anybody that was actually you. So this cannot be swept under the rug and called it, you know, a mistake and in a case of tunnel vision, because that's clearly not what it was. I mean, what this was was a lynching for back of a better word. And so you go to trial. How long did the trial last?
Three day? Trial?
Did you testify?
Yes? I did? And what was that like? Well, to me, eighteen you know, you don't have the same verbiage azz. You know, I'm a toure prosecutor you know, and so even though you can stand your grounds, you really can't protect yourself because you don't know any of the legal terminology. And so every time you're trying to say, no, I was here with my friend, well this and that, and
it didn't trick me up. I just couldn't express myself as well as I can now, because you know, the eighteen year old down there in the forty seven year old donaire a large difference, you know. And so to me it was hard fying because I'm like, can't they can't they see what's going on? I mean, they about to take my life. I said, they're not considering this, and I'm looking at the prosecutors and they were dead set on me going to prison for the rest of
my life. I'm looking at the police officer. I'm like, I'm looking at them fabricating a story because I know I was in the house that day, and so I couldn't have been out raping someone. I was trying to tell them this what I was watching on TV. If you go back and look at this on TV, you'll see I'm correct. There's no way I know where I could have been on the crime scene. If I'm watching TV. I was trying to tell them about my friend's mother.
She had told them, but they would not let her testify in court because at that moment she had brain cancer and the months that I was out, she began to lose her sight. But she said she still remember that man did not have on white and green. That man held him all brown and black, and he was right here on this couch with me. So they never let her testify that day. To me, it was horrible. You know, I didn't have a juror of my peers.
You know, I think the closest I they came to a dur on my peers was a person that was she's probably about twenty eight. I don't know whether she was Chinese, I don't know what she was.
But no black people on the Jersey Nah, oh boy, you know. And so you know, I had lunch the other day with a friend of mine who was doing great things and criminal justice perform and she was telling me before she became this performer, you know, now, I don't think anbody woul put her on a jury, but she was on the jury. And she said she was
on this case. It was a serious criminal case. And she said the third day of deliberations, the jury start saying, you know what, I really don't care anymore whether the guy's guilty or not. I'm going home like I've had it, Like I got things to do. I can't be bothered with this anymore. Like people were just breaking down, all right, guilty, you know what I mean? Like people were just caving.
And I'm making that point because I don't know what went on in your jury room, but after three days, you know, you could kind of understand how jurors could become so stressed out and everybody wants to go home. But I think when you're listening to Darnella and you hear the pain, and you know that he's just one of millions that have gone through this, so many of
whom were innocent. You know, I'm just asking people to keep that in mind when you're in that jury room and it's an inconvenience, you know what, We got to work together to prevent these things from happening. And it's not going to happen if people are going to be susceptible to their own personal needs at a time when they hold somebody's life in their hands, as it was
in your case. Because I got to believe that there were jurors in that room that we're sitting there going wait a minute, though the thing didn't match the description that this that that I mean, you know, because there was no forensic evidence. I mean, they made up a story about a hair, right, one hair on a blanket, right, that was another thing.
Right, they said the man, he's eighty something now, but he told them, well, you know, that was what they called junk science. But at the time he said that it had like fourteen particulars that kind of they were similar to mine. But when they tested it in two thousand and one, it shows it wasn't mine at all. As a matter of fact, whoever it was the mother had Caucasian. It was a mine, the man from the Department of Defense, they tested it.
Yeah, so there was junk science involved on top of all the other stuff. That was the only physical evidence was one hair on a blanket that was found with the girl near the girl, which of course now we know wasn't your hair anyway. So if they needed another story to make up, there there it was. And how long did the jury deliberate.
Deliberate it like three days on the third day of the trial, about eight o'clock at night, they rendered the decision and they told me, you know, guilty. I'm like, guilty. I know what guilty means. But I'm thinking they made a mistake because how could you incarcerate somebody who's innocent? And so I'm thinking that maybe I didn't hear this right, and they were reading off the jurors, you know, suggestions, and you know, I'm looking at my lawyer. I'm saying, say,
am I going home tonight? And he looks at me, say he said no. I'm like, what's going on? You know, He's like, man, you see you're going to prison. Man, I said, I'm going to prison. Man told him I was facing one hundred seven years, but they did. They gave me one hundred years, right, and then with that robbery, they gave me a seven year sentence. Ye hundred years at the time, you know, and I'm like, a hundred years,
I said, man, I'm a kid. I didn't do anything that was real painful man, you know, because my life was discarded as if, you know, like I was a piece of trash or something. You know, you know, a hundred years I had dreams and I wanted to do things I wouldn't committing. You know, I was a very good young man. I just wanted to help people with my life, and here they are, they want to.
Take my life. So there you go to prison. You're stuck there for decades. And as you said, you were a young man with dreams and hopes like anybody would be at eighteen. How did you manage to never lose hope in this situation?
You know, I was personally. I had just came into my faith and I said, you know, regardless of how long I have to stay there, I said, I'm not going to allow that place to cause me to succumb to its environment. The court system had already failed me. So and I just believed that one day the truth will come out. You know. That's just something that was a conviction in me. Outside of that, the only thing
that got me through my faith. Man, I'm gonna be honest with you, writing, you know, reading the Bible and studying and praying. And because I want to go into industry, so I studied for that because I wanted to help people. And so I said, well, if I can't help people on the outside, I can help people on the inside. And so that's what I started doing teaching and preaching and writing. You know, I said, wrote several manuscripts with books,
just teaching myself a lot of things. Man, studying business. I studied law because I did it some of the pro sal on my own case before I worked. You know, I did everything I could man to keep my head above waters.
Man.
But mostly I would say my faith, man, and helping people. Man. I found relief in helping others, you know, because everything else, Man, it had failed me.
So ultimately we know now that you're here, this is the good part of the story. How did you first get in touch with the Virginia Innocence Project? What did that mean to you when they agreed to represent you? And then how did things develop from there?
Well, I was the teacher's aid at Southampton Correctional Center for several years, and I had a boss there that he sent something to the New York Innocence Project because he said, bhavior was kind of strange. He said, I kind of stood out for the other inmates, and he said,
you don't belong here. He said something wrong. So I broke down and I told him the story, and he said, don He said, I put something into the New York Innocence Project, he said, I don't know whether or not they got it, he said, but I put it in. And so several years later, I was at Green Rock Correctional Center. I think New York had sent me back some paperwork said that they were opening up Virginia chapter of the Innocence Project. And so one of the students
came and visited me. And this is right after my father had died in two thousand and nine. You know. They visited me and told me he said, Man, I don't know whether or not I'll be able to help you before I leave, he said, but I'm gonna give it my best shot, try to get you out of there before I graduated. I said, that's cool. So I met that one student he graduated. I hadn't heard anything for, you know, several years, and so finally my older sister one morning, she said, you know what, I have to
do something. So she drove up. She had never been to Charlottesville. She drove up to Charlottesville and she had my paperwork. When she went there, she didn't know whether or not university was open what, but she asked when with the that was dear Jen right once she be there. So she brought in, you know, the boxes and everything, and ultimately, and this is project, they really started looking more intent. One thing that touched me. I'm gonna tell
you what touched me. Jennifer Gibbons had told me. She said, you know, Donelle, even if we don't find DNA, you know, because they would look for DNA, the say they couldn't find any DNA because the Prosecutor City had been destroyed in two thousand and five. So she said, you know, we're gonna fight this even if we don't find DNA. I finally felt like I was being heard. I went through so many decades without being heard, and now finally
I didn't know how to take it. Someone talking to you like a human didn't give them the time and the energy. And they talked to me. They were very kind, and so I was like, man, I said, I'm actually going to get some help now. I had been praying about this for years. I said, man, I'm really going to get some help. I said, I have to give it up to the Inner Project. You know, they were more than lawyers. They were like family to me.
Well they were lawyers, they were family. They were also private investigators. They were doing.
Yes, they did. They started looking around, combing around for evidence, and in twenty sixteen they had found some evidence, you know, and I'm like, okay, now, let's see what this did. They going to show up and clear me. You know, I had no problem testing because knew I didn't do anything. So they went try to get it tested, the clothing because some of the other stuff had been destroyed deliberately,
in my opinion, they tested it. They said that Virginia couldn't find anything, so they went to an external lab. In that lab in California, they found some DNA.
And let's not skip over too quickly the fact that, as if they hadn't done enough, they also lied to you about the existence of the evidence, right, They covered it up for a decade. For a decade they said there's no evidence, but there was evidence. And we've seen this again and again in Alan Newton's case, Kurk Bloodsworth's case, so many cases where they say the evidence is not here, but it's here. Somebody just has to go look for it.
But they just keep moving the gold posts and trying to hope that the maybe they're trying to get the lawyers to give up. I mean, every time I try to figure it out or understand it, I just I don't understand why they Why would anybody not want to get to the truth, except for they want to protect somebody's reputation. And this goes on and it's still going on to this day in your case, which you know, hopefully it will get resolved because we know now that
your outfie, you're still not even really free. So that's another thing that has to get addressed. And when we get to that part of the story. So they found the DNA, they got it tested in California. How did you find out that the results came back that showed that you weren't the.
Guy I was on the ballpark because this was like the third go round because as Virginia tested it, they couldn't find anything. But the guy in California, he said he tested right where they were testing and he found it. I'm like, how does that work? Because Virginia's they're very flawed, they're very behind on technology when it comes to DNA. But yet when you present it to the courtrooms, they don't want to receive it because it's not from Virginia.
But yet Virginia they have a very flawed forensic science laboratory. You know, I have to say that because if it wasn't, you know, I wouldn't be here. Years later, so I was outside on the yard. An officer told me, look, someone wants to talk to you, so I call my lawyer. So when I talked to him, Deringja and Wright asked me. She said, donall you you're sitting down. I said, well, what is it, Derja? She said, are you sitting down? I'm like I said, yeah, yeah, she said. A man
called from the laboratory in California. He said it wasn't yours. And they said, now here's something that people get confused about. Whoever it was in the DNA had three markers similar to mine. Scientifically, one in ten African American men have three markers of the same But then when you get to the rest of the markers, it shows O, this is a totally different person. One in twenty three individuals
have the same three markers. And so the man told them that when you look on the outside, he said, you see the person had similar markers three but when you get to the rest of them, to which they didn't want to test, he said, it shows you it's not donell He says, it's not him. It's not him. So these labs outside of Virginia they saw the truth, but when we brought it back over Virginia side, they didn't want to process it because they didn't do it. So go figure, Go figure, man.
I didn't know that science only worked inside the state lines. You know, science is science.
Unfortunately, you know, no one really pushed that law yet, you know, pushed it through. Man, But you know, you have a lot of innocent guys being overlooked. They have proof, but because sometimes the labs didn't come through Virginia, the testing income through Virginia, they just can't get anything done. And some of these guys I talked to Saturday, I said, it's beautiful you call me because I'm going to New York. I said, Man, you know I can never forget you,
and I'm not going to forget you. You know, I said, I wish I was totally clear. Man, I can really do some things to help you, you know, but like I say, you know, unfortunate. I'm not in that position yet.
But which is an interesting thing because you were paroled
without admitting guilt, which almost never happens. And I know the audience is probably thinking, wait a minute, but now the DNA, wouldn't the case just be overturned and thrown out, But they still fought that, and you had to go out sort of through the almost through the back door, so to speak, right by getting paroled, but still being forced to register and you know, be punished again on the outside because in your case, Virginia just doesn't want
to admit that they're wrong. What we were talking about before, which is so profound, is the victim herself, right, who's
now a grown woman. I mean, this is twenty eight years ago, so she's thirty eight, thirty nine years old, and talk about what her advocacy for you has mat how they have prevented her, Like she wanted to actually come and greet you and hug you and apologize or whatever it was that was on her mind as you were coming out the prison gates, and they wouldn't even allow her to do that.
She had requested it, because she was the one who went and testified on my behalf, you know once my lawyers. Of course, I've never spoken to her outside of that at all, but my lawyers when they talk to us, she's like, well, look, you know, I want to do whatever I can to help get Darnell exonerated. She went to the parole board herself. So she asked my lawyers. She said, well, you know, can I go and see Darnelle law They're like, well, you know, I can't do
that because you know, like I said, the system. You know, she still want to meet me to this day, I can't meet her. I don't know. Man. I appreciate her because, you know, she could have kept in her mind, she would have went to a grade with it. But she was a bold woman. To me, that was a profound because she's done more than a lot of times than many of the legal people have done for me, you know,
because she came forth with the truth. She filled in a lot of blanks that I didn't know, my lawyers didn't know as to why things were going on, you know, like an undercurrent, and she filled them blanks in. So for that, I'll ever be grateful to her.
And so you walked out of prison after twenty eight years.
Well, I was ecstatic then, Jason, because one, you know, you're you're an ambitious man, Lisa, You're a very ambitious woman. You know, you had an opportunity to work in your passions. Well me, even though a lot of times I worked on my passion in prison. Now I'm like, I can finally come out and do this because those fires never died in me and so I'm like, man, I'm gonna be able to do this now. That's all I wanted
to do. I wanted to feel like what my purpose was that was going to ministry, to get in the business, to marry. My fiancee would have been with me for eighteen years fighting alongside me. I'm like, man, I'm gonna be able to get married now, I'm gonna be able to go to in the ministry. I'm gonna be able to start a business. I'm gonna be able to be around my mother and to close that chapter of my life, so to speak.
What is it like now, Like, how's your day to day? Been out for four months now?
When people do recognize me, they're very empathetic, you know, sympathetic towards me. But when it comes time to work, now, like keep mind, like I'm forty seven years old, man, pretty much have to start like a person who's sixteen years old. The jobs I go for, I go for like sales jobs or I go for any other type of job. I mean, I'm broken down to warehouse or whatever. I just wanted some employment. Sometimes even though they're not supposed to discriminate, and even though they believe you, and
even though they took me, I recognize your case. But one of the jobs I had went to the man said, you know, he said, man, you have to be cleared when I do the background chase. He said, you have to be cleared for this job. He said, I understand your situation, but you have to be cleared, and so that I couldn't get the job. Personally, I understood because I know that he has to represent his business. But in my heart and mind, I'm like, man, I'm still
paying for something I didn't do. So I have to depend on other people for money when that is not my nature at all. All I want to do is be able to provide for myself, get married, you know, get a vehicle. I have to depend on people for rides because I can't even get a cheap vehicle. And so even though I'm glad to be out, you know, I'm grateful, but I still have to suffer day to day.
I want to start my own business. I wanna start all those detailing business But if I could work, I could get the little money that it costs a little six thousand dollar that shouldn't a struggle. But you can't work, so you can't get the money. And so I'm not a criminal, So I'm not gonna commit crimes. I'm not gonna sell drugs. I'm not gonna ride. That's not my nature. The only thing I can do, man is prey man look for opportunity to come man.
People that are listening, maybe they live in or know about opportunities in the area of Virginia Beach area. How would they contact you? Do you have a website or an email address or something like that you wanna share.
I have an email d ar n p h I L nineteen at yahoo dot com.
Darnfeld d A r n p h I L nineteen the number nineteen at Yahoo. If people want to reach out to you for speaking gigs maybe or anything else like that.
We actually set up a GoFundMe to try to give him more opportunities. Now you know, in the meantime of being fully exonerated.
How do people access to GoFundMe so they.
Can google Darnell Phillips go fund me, or they can go to the website V four jr dot org and there's a link on our website to the go fundme account v as in Victor the number four j r dot org. Or they can look us up Virginians for Judicial Reform on Facebook and there are links to it on our Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as well.
So before we wrap up, my question for you is, are you better.
No, I'm gonna be honest with you, Jason. That would sound crazy, but when I said that I wouldn't let that place, I wouldn't let this situation change me. I meit that. I vowed that to myself and I vowed it to God. I said, I will not allow that to change me because it will make me like them, you know. And I'm not talking about inmate. It would make me like the wickedness that people perform to get
me in there, you know. So I'm not bitter. I did not like what happened to me, but I'm not bitter because the people I met, the experiences I went through outside of the legal system. Now, the individuals I met, it opened my eyes up to you know that their cause is bigger than myself and my only thing is how do I get involved to help them? You know, because it's all about helping people. It's all about helping people get to the next level in their life, you know.
And you have to live your life or calls outside of yourself, you know, like like you, you know you you're a great producer, but you find the time to help guys in situations like mine, you know what I mean. There's two different things. But nevertheless, that's a passion of yours, you know what I mean. That's a God's send for guys like me. Man, you don't really know how how strongly you know you affect us. Man, You really affect us to a degree, man, to our core, because you
actually hear guys, You actually take the time. I remember when I called you on the phone. I was shocked. I thought I was gonn get a secretary of So I said, I just got answered his phone. I mean for real, I said, he this guy answered his phone. I said, just got cared for real. And so you don't find many people like you, man, So I would just sit there and continue what you're doing, man, you know, and pray after it. One day, Man, I'll be able to help people just like that.
You definitely will. And you know, for me, it's a duty but also a privilege to be able to be around people like yourself who have been to hell and back and come out with a smiling face and a bouncing your step. It's an unbelievable thing. I mean, it's really a selfish thing that I do, you know, because it makes my life better, you know, knowing you people like Lisa that are involved in the fight. The other Xigneries really the finest people that I've had the chance
to come across, most of them are Exigneries. It's crazy, so I don't really understand it, but it is what it is. So this is the part of the show which is my favorite part of the show because this is a part of the show where I get to stop talking and listen. And you know, first of all, I want to thank both of you for coming. It's been an honor for me to tape this show with you. So thanks again Darnell Philips for coming in and sharing
your thoughts. And Lisa Speeds. Keep fighting the good fight, you know, We'll keep working together and the winds are few and far between, and the frustrations a lot, but we just keep fighting.
So but the ones are worth it.
That's right. So now I'm gonna turn it over to you just for some brief final thoughts. Lisa, you can go first, because we're going to save the best for last.
Well, thank you for having me. I think Darnell's case is just kind of interesting to me because I learned about him from another wrongfully convicted person that's still in prison. And when I would email with Darnell has emails to me while he was still in prison. We're so like uplifting and it just was like a breath of fresh air into my day. So seeing him be on the outside and meeting him in person today was an incredible experience. We have some real problems with the criminal justice system
in Virginia. We don't have parole, jury's recommend sentences. The way our rid of actual innocence is designed is, you know, to kind of circumvent actual justice. Ignoring DNA evidence because it didn't come from Virginia lab is wrong. And so you know, we would love for more people to get involved, and I know Darnelle wants to get involved and trying to change the system there to truly seek out justice for all of us and make it better. So thanks for having me.
What I would like to say, I would like to speak to those who are presently incarcerated. You know, if they can hear me, that there is always hope, you know, never give up, you know, never let go of your dream of being released from prison. Especially for the false incarcerated. Know that there are groups and people who will hear you, can hear you, and can feel what you're feeling. From one innoc and man to another, I said, man, keep your faith, don't give up. This is twenty eight years later.
As long as we have good people like the Innocence Project, Jays flam Messa Speeds, these people out here to help us. So don't give up. You know, sometimes it's easy to you know, to stop writing people, to just succumb to the system, you know, figuring you know you're losing hope and figuring that, hey, look, no one wants to hear no one wants to get involved in my situation. Don't fall prey to the lie. Reach out. There's someone who will help you.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction and tune in next week. Don't forget to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps, and I'm a proud donor to the Innocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot org to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and
Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one